


Running Up That Hill

by cordeliadelayne



Category: Fringe
Genre: Gen, Season/Series 02
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-12
Updated: 2015-08-12
Packaged: 2018-04-14 09:04:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4558749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordeliadelayne/pseuds/cordeliadelayne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's hard to ask the question when you didn't know the answer existed. Takes place directly after Ep 215.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Running Up That Hill

Peter sat across the table from Olivia who was absently peeling at the label on her beer bottle. He knew she was distracted, hell, it had been a distracting kind of day, but there was something else there too. Something darker.

Normally he'd ask point blank what the issue was, pull off the band-aid without a second thought. But whatever was going on with Olivia he thought he recognized the signs of her mulling over a problem she wasn't going to share until she was ready. That was one of the things he liked about her most, though also one of the most distracting.

“Walter wants to know if you'll call him Dad,” Peter said. He motioned to the waiter to bring some more drinks.

“What?” Olivia asked. Her lips quirked in that bemused-not-quite-ready-to-smile way, and Peter grinned.

“You know, when we inevitability get married.” Peter finished his beer in one long gulp, lips smiling around the bottle. Olivia cautiously returned it.

“And what did you tell him?”

“That there's no way you'd call him Dad.”

Olivia nodded. “And you were right.” She took the offered bottle from the waiter and downed half of it in one go, shrugging when Peter raised an eyebrow at her. “I'm thirsty.”

“Uh-huh,” Peter replied. “I see that.”

Olivia frowned at him, tilting her head as if to get a better look. She'd been doing that all night, only now it was starting to freak him out.

“I know things are going to be _weird_ with Walter for a while. God knows I'd find it hard to get over what he did to you and the other kids. Hell, the crap he's put me through, sometimes I don't...”

“Would you though?” Olivia interrupted. Peter looked at her blankly. “Would you forgive him anything?”

Peter frowned. “Of course not.” He shrugged. “Walter – he doesn't think like other people, you know that. His moral compass is pretty much stuck on “it seemed like a good idea at the time'”. He paused and this time it was him that started pulling at the label on his beer bottle. “There was a time when I thought I'd never forgive him for anything. That I'd never see him again.”

He stared off into the distance, eyes darting towards the secluded booths where couples were laughing and talking, fingers entwined, gazes locked. And then he turned back to Olivia, saw the way that she was staring at him, but not really seeing him.

“Olivia, are you going to tell me what's going on? Has Walter done something -”

“I – I think we ought to go.”

“Go?” he asked, surprised. But Olivia was already paying and asking for her coat and he found himself following her out into the street.

They stood under a street light, Olivia turned slightly away from him.

“Olivia, what has Walter done?” A cold hand wrapped its way around his heart as she refused to answer the question. Instead she shook her head and he knew it had to be bad. Though that wasn't exactly unusual these days.

“I think you need to ask your father about that,” she said at last. Her words seemed strangely stilted and Peter's frown deepened.

“Olivia - “

“Ask Walter to tell you the truth,” she blurted. She turned to face him then, eyes still as unseeing as before. “It shouldn't come from me.” Before Peter could speak she stepped forward and put her hand on his arm. Peter stared dumbly down at it. “Call me when you're done.” She nodded at him and started to walk away.

The light of the streetlamp flickered above him, casting fractured shadows all around. A shiver took him by surprise and he carried on watching Olivia's retreating back for a long time, not sure he wanted to know what Walter would tell him.

Until she was out of sight. And he was all alone.


End file.
